One of the tasks performed by mobile robots includes mapping areas, such as houses, rooms, fields, either indoor or outdoor. When the area is indoor, mapping may be performed by emitting a signal to a general direction of a wall defining the indoor mapped area, and determining the distance from the wall in the specific direction according to the time elapsed between emitting the signal and detecting the signal's reflection from the wall.
One method of mapping an indoor area discloses the use of laser beams outputted from a laser unit located on the mobile robot. The laser beam is emitted from a laser module mounted in the mobile robot. The laser module rotates 360 degrees around the lateral side of the mobile robot, emitting laser at a predefined sampling frequency, for example 4000 beams a second, with a resolution of 1 beam per degree, amounting to about 11 rounds per second.
Laser modules, such as LIDAR (Laser Imaging, Detection and Ranging) are relatively expensive and difficult to maintain, as replacing laser modules require technical expert, relative to replacing an off-the-shelf camera.